It is OK, just another example, to “use” your kid with down syndrome to get votes of other Americans, to showcase him as a proud example of your pro life views, yet your other kid’s pregnancy is an off limits “private family matter”. Not to mention of course marketing yourself as an average/good (hockey) mom when you knowingly throw your teen daughter in the nasty national spotlight for your political ambitions (when she least needed that).

It would take pages, maybe a book, if we’d like to go on and on about the republican brand and its politics of hypocrisy and I don’t want to write about that, other people already do. I am apalled, nonetheless, to see that the right politics of hypocrisy is actually right (at least sometimes). It works, it gets votes.

What is as interesting is that exactly same thing is happening in Turkey. The religious right, which I believe is the exact counter part of Sarah Palin type evangelist, are terribly hypocritical. They (not all of them of course) are corrupt, yet they say they’re totally clean. They ask for more tolerance for religious signs and views in the public sphere, yet whenever the Ramadan, the holy month for Islam, comes, they beat up people who do not follow Islamic rituals (of the month).

One other similarity is the use of God. It turns out god is a very useful tool in politics. Here a NYTimes from today. The story goes:

“Shortly after taking office as governor in 2006, Sarah Palin sent an e-mail message to Paul E. Riley, her former pastor in the Assembly of God Church, which her family began attending when she was a youth. She needed spiritual advice in how to do her new job, said Mr. Riley, who is 78 and retired from the church.”

A governor asking advice from a pastor on how to do her job? What? But no, it’s not over, the story continues:

“In the address at the Assembly of God Church here, Ms. Palin’s ease in talking about the intersection of faith and public life was clear. Among other things, she encouraged the group of young church leaders to pray that “God’s will” be done in bringing about the construction of a big pipeline in the state, and suggested her work as governor would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.””

“pray[ing] that “God’s will” be done in bringing about the construction of a big pipeline in the state”? What the hell, where are we? I can’t decide which is worse: If she’s using god’s name for political reasons (to make herself popular), or if she truly believes in it. Yeah, I’m sure god wants a pipeline in Alaska.

How similar, or the same, this is with what some religious fanatics in Turkey said after the great earthquake of 1999, which killed more than 30.000 people: “This is how God punishes”, they said “a people who went out of his way”.

Worst of all is, and Obama was 100% right, with more and more inequality in distribution of wealth and with more people being unable to afford to learn what really is going on in the world, they cling to the religious idioms, or media stupidity in making their decisions in elections. In this system where people don’t have time or energy (because they’re worked to death with very little pay) to understand what really is going on, they vote on the grounds that “oh he/she’s just like me”. (I heard a woman yesterday saying on TV that “Sarah Palin showed that every American citizen could become the VP” and that’s why she’s voting for Palin – Very well said!)

I think up until Bush’s presidency maybe these marginal small town tendencies in American administration could be kept at bay. But with Bush the evangelists took the Republican party and now that spirit continues with Palin. (Mc Cain, the maverick, could not resist their pressures and instead of choosing his preferred VP candidate, Liebermann, caved in and picked Palin). If this narrow minded small politics (Sarah Palin got her passport in 2007, she has never traveled outside of US until then) get the white house once again, America in world political economy will be doomed big time. Not just because those small town folks do not know how the world works, but because religion and easy answers from god replaces science and diplomacy in their administration. (Not that America in the world politics today is great, but it’s yet another nightmare to think another republican term in the white house.)